Five Things Tech: Coding Agents, Organisms, Next.js, Ukraine, Arcades
Everything you should read about Tech right now.
So, let’s talk about Tech, big and small.
The barrier to software creation has genuinely collapsed, with AI coding agents driving 40% more websites, 50% more iOS apps, and 35% more GitHub pushes since late 2024, including Cloudflare rebuilding Next.js in a week for just $1,100.
Meanwhile, philosopher Hans Jonas reminds us that organisms aren't mere machines and minds aren't just computers, a perspective gaining traction among neuroscientists and physicists as we wrestle with what makes intelligence actually intelligent.
Ukraine has flipped the script from weapon recipient to weapons innovator, with European nations like Germany now partnering through "Build With Ukraine" to access battle-tested drone and electronic warfare expertise, which I've seen firsthand working with a German startup that hired a Ukrainian AI drone specialist whose frontline experience is simply unmatched.
The debate over which arcade deserves the "world's largest" title matters less than the nostalgia it triggers, that symphony of trilling game sounds and pizza smell transporting any 80s kid back to simpler times when pockets full of coins meant an afternoon of pure joy.
These shifts in software creation, our understanding of life and intelligence, warfare innovation, and cultural memory all point to how quickly our assumptions about what's possible keep getting upended.
This is my very subjective and opinionated selection of articles you should read this week.
Enjoy Five Things Tech! 🤖
The Factory Model: How Coding Agents Changed Software Engineering
New website creation is up 40% year over year. New iOS apps are up nearly 50%. GitHub code pushes jumped 35% in the US. All of these metrics were flat for years before late 2024. The graphs look like hockey sticks. People who have never written a line of code are building and launching software.
Keep in mind, we can and should note that more quantity does not necessarily mean better quality. But the fact remains that the barrier to creating software has dropped dramatically, and that is a fundamental shift in the landscape of software engineering.
The barrier to creating software has genuinely dropped. That is not hype. What it means for professional engineers is not that their skills are less valuable, but that the skills that matter have shifted up the stack, as they have in every previous transition.
This is such a huge change we are going through right now and most people do not even realize it. I am spending so much time with coding agents and I just enjoy it. Check out ANTIGRAVITY.md for a start with Google Antigravity.
Why organisms are more than machines
There are basic technical grounds to be skeptical of that claim, but beyond that, a much deeper issue lies at the boundary between science and philosophy: What makes life different from non-life? Why is a rock inert and insensate, while even the simplest cell manifests open-ended activity in the relentless pursuit of staying alive? Since the only systems that indisputably display intelligence are alive, if we can’t understand life, we’re probably missing something essential about intelligence.
Sixty years ago, an influential but little-known philosopher named Hans Jonas gave a potent, creative, and radical answer to this question of what makes life different from non-life. In the decades since, the power and reach of his perspective have gained traction. Today, for a growing group of researchers — in fields ranging from neuroscience to the physics of complex systems — Jonas has become an incisive voice arguing forcefully that organisms are more than just machines, and minds are more than just computers.
This is something to think about.
How we rebuilt Next.js with AI in one week
A project like this would normally take a team of engineers months, if not years. Several teams at various companies have attempted it, and the scope is just enormous. We tried once at Cloudflare! Two routers, 33+ module shims, server rendering pipelines, RSC streaming, file-system routing, middleware, caching, static export. There’s a reason nobody has pulled it off.
This time we did it in under a week. One engineer (technically engineering manager) directing AI.
The first commit landed on February 13. By the end of that same evening, both the Pages Router and App Router had basic SSR working, along with middleware, server actions, and streaming. By the next afternoon, App Router Playground was rendering 10 of 11 routes. By day three,
vinext deploywas shipping apps to Cloudflare Workers with full client hydration. The rest of the week was hardening: fixing edge cases, expanding the test suite, bringing API coverage to 94%.What changed from those earlier attempts? AI got better. Way better.
$1100 spent for coding agents and then Next.js got rebuilt.
Ukraine Depended on Western Weaponry. Now That Script Has Flipped.
European nations are snapping up Ukrainian front-line know-how, helping NATO militaries rewire themselves for a transformed battlefield that is dominated by drones and electronic warfare, and where even new weapons can become obsolete in a few months.
For countries like Germany, the “Build With Ukraine” initiative allows them to couple state subsidies with Ukrainian innovation, revitalizing sluggish economies and retooling ailing factories. For Ukraine, it means more weapons to its troops—paid for by its allies.
I am working with a German drone startup that just hired a Ukrainian AI drone specialist and sureley he has a really strong experience that is hard to match anywhere else.
Which of these two arcades is the “world largest”—and does it matter?
That’s just one of the arcade[s many rarities, all beautifully laid out in an expansive, red-carpeted room with just barely enough lighting to keep you from tripping over your friends as you wander around, mouth agape.
The constant trilling tones of all those vintage machines make for a discordant symphony better than any orchestra could produce. You also get a whiff of the pizza and french fries from the cafeteria down the hall. Like Proust with his madeleines, it’s enough to warp any child of the ’80s back to simpler times.
I remember quite well the time I spent in arcades when I was a kid. Great times, and so many coins in my pockets that I spent for awesome games.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
🤖
— Nico